


seeing is believing

by bluebeholder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: American Sign Language, Deaf Character, Eileen is a Woman of Letters, F/M, Family, Men of Letters, nerd love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eileen comes back to the bunker. She's expecting to find a base, a place to work, maybe someplace to sleep safely at night. Not much more than that. </p><p>Instead, she gets a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seeing is believing

**Author's Note:**

> Two translation notes. 
> 
> 1\. Words in _ALL CAPS_ are meant to write out actual signs. This is known as “glossing”. It’s a way for ASL users to translate signs into their written English form. I use it when signs are actually used as dialogue.
> 
> 2\. Signing exact English is a system that uses signs to literally represent words from English, rather than using ASL. In the example from this fic, _BREAKFAST_ is not an ASL sign. People using actual American Sign Language rather than signing exact English would use a sign that translates directly as _MORNING FOOD_. Signing exact English is controversial, but decently common among students of ASL and some sectors of the Deaf/HOH community.

The endless, lonely, silent road stretches out in front of her. She could keep driving, hunting down the things that need killing, collecting the magical odds and ends that make her life easier, keep going on with her life. Safe, simple, alone.

But—

Eileen doesn’t want to.

For a minute—just a minute, out of all her years working on her own—she had an idea of what it would be like to not be alone. To work with someone else. To end a hunt and have someone to laugh about it with at the end of the day. To have someone to help you patch up your cuts and soothe your bruises. To trust someone to have your back. 

(Trust is hard when you can’t hear what they’re saying about you when you aren’t looking.)

In the car at the end of a long hunt, covered in blood and the dirt of a grave, Eileen rests her head on the steering wheel and thinks about it again. 

She gets on the highway and turns her car around, pointing her headlights back to Lebanon, Kansas, and whatever—whoever—is waiting there.

***

She makes sure to put her hearing aids in before she gets there, just because she really doesn’t want to have to suffer through the pantomime that normally passes for signs among the hearing. A part of her mutters mutinously and reminds her that they probably won’t even remember her. Who, that part demands to know, who ever remembered about Eileen Leahy?

As it turns out, when she gets to the bunker, the Winchesters do remember her. 

Dean gives her an awkward handshake, gruffly muttering something about needing to make a grocery run and needing to clean up and air out a new bedroom if she’s planning to stay. It’s hard to read his lips, but she gives it her best shot. They’re not half bad to look at, at least. But he has a tendency to talk fast, and he mutters a bit.

Sam’s greeting absolutely floors her. Slowly, with the exaggerated care of someone who’s never really signed before, he asks her in ASL how the drive was and how she’s doing. After a second of processing—he’s learning how to sign?—Eileen replies that the drive was good and that she’s okay, and she’s happy to be here. He watches her hands intently, and his smile is real and genuine when he looks at her, and offers with his hands to help her carry her stuff inside.

***

Eileen falls into life at the Bunker naturally, almost effortlessly. The men help her move into a room all her own, a comfortably large space with a sense of permanence that no other place she’s lived has been able to match. Maybe it’s the concrete walls or the solid furniture or the warmth of the radiators under her hands, but it feels like home here. It’s close to the rooms that Dean and Sam and their other hunting partner, Castiel, have claimed.

On the note of Castiel: he’s hard to get used to. She’d heard about angels, of course, but had always been a bit skeptical. But when they introduce her to Castiel, she can hear **something else** in her hearing aids, a susurration of distant voices. She glances at Sam, a touch confused, and sees him make the sign for _ANGEL_. It’s not hard to believe when she’s standing face to face with him, but it’s still a shock.

(Even without her hearing aids, she can still hear the voices around Castiel. It seems to be part and parcel of his Grace, like the sharp smell of ozone that surrounds him and the way he seems to give off faint light in the dark. But Sam and Dean don’t seem like they can hear the voices.)

***

Eileen has her own areas of research, particularly in Celtic lore and ritual magic from Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian traditions. She’s thrilled with the library and vast resources contained within the bunker. In the evenings, if they aren’t watching movies, all four hunters sometimes sit in the library and work in a companionable silence. 

The men don’t talk much, and that’s actually kind of nice. Around hearing people, Eileen usually feels pressured to make noise and join in the ruckus. Here, they act according to nonverbal cues. All three of them read body language surprisingly well, and she can see them communicating whole volumes of information with a look. It’s not hard for her to join in with that, and they all try to include her. 

So she eats breakfast in the same place every morning, and watches Dean’s telenovelas with total bemusement, and reads books that Sam recommends to her, and talks about magic with Castiel, and sleeps in the same bed every night. If anyone had ever told Eileen that this was how her life would end up, she would have laughed herself sick. She wishes Lillian could only see her now. 

***

Their first hunt together is tracking down a small vampire nest. Eileen is still twitchy around other hunters, but her paranoia is unnecessary. They don’t leave her behind. Face twisted in concentration, mouthing along with his hands, Sam helps to translate things into ASL for Eileen. Dean slows down when he talks to her, making sure she can read his lips. Castiel listens when she speaks and sometimes shouts down the brothers to make sure that they hear her. 

It’s a successful hunt. Nothing goes wrong—in fact, everything goes right. They find all the vampires easily, holed up in an abandoned barn. Eileen ends up personally taking a machete to the nest’s sire while Castiel smites the vampires trying to chew on Dean and Sam gets the terrified human captives out of danger. She gets a warm glow of pride from the whole thing, even if she’s got vampire blood soaked into her jeans.

Driving back to the bunker, Eileen finds herself in the backseat with Sam while Dean drives and Castiel rides shotgun. Sam squishes himself against the door, giving her a frankly ridiculous amount of space. She stares at him until he looks at her, then pats the wide space between them. _SIT HERE_ , she signs, half exasperated. After a minute, he does. Their shoulders settle together. Eileen is tense for a minute, but he doesn’t make any other moves. Eventually, she relaxes. 

If she wakes up later with her head on Sam’s chest with his arm around her shoulders, well, it’s not like she actually has to hear Dean’s endless supply of wisecracks.

***

One Sunday morning, Eileen walks into the kitchen at four in the morning, looking for coffee. Someone’s already set up the machine, so it doesn’t take long until it’s ready and she can pour herself a mug. She likes the bunker at this time of day. No one else is ever up, since all three men are late sleepers when they don’t have a hunt to worry about. So she has the bunker to herself. She doesn’t put on her hearing aids or worry about trying to talk to anyone. It’s just her and the quiet.

Eileen’s facing the counter and suddenly someone’s tapping her on the shoulder. Startled, she almost drops the mug. When she whips around, it’s to see a rather shamefaced Dean. Eileen takes a second to breathe and slow her heart rate. Dean presses a fist to his chest and circles it slowly in a clockwise motion. _SORRY_. 

Eileen stares at his hand, then at his face. So…he’s been learning to sign, too? _THANK YOU_ , she signs back, a little bit thrown. (He’d better know that one, at least.)

He makes the slightly constipated expression of someone who doesn’t entirely know the language they’re trying to speak. He points at Eileen, then pulls both hands toward him with the palms up, and raised his right hand diagonally to his mouth in a B-sign, tilting his hand back and forth a bit. _YOU WANT BREAKFAST?_

 _YES_ , she replies. Eileen thinks her eyebrows might touch the ceiling at any second. So it isn’t perfect. Signing exact English isn’t her favorite, by any means—but he’s signing to her, and that’s more than Eileen ever expected to see.

Dean gives her a gentle push toward the table, indicating that she should sit down and enjoy her coffee. And she does. He starts toast and pulls out eggs and cheese and starts working on omelets, glancing at her periodically, as if to make sure she hasn’t disappeared. There’s a warmth in her chest that she hasn’t felt for an awfully long time.

***

They all sign to her more and more frequently as time goes on. Castiel’s a textbook-perfect speaker, hands gracefully tackling the most formal versions of signs—a formality Eileen hasn’t bothered with in years. Dean stutters and stumbles, mouthing his words along with his signs, which are usually the simplest possible version. Sam’s habit is to stare at Eileen’s hands, almost memorizing what she says, and replying with the same intense concentration. 

After a while, they start using subtitles on everything they watch, movies and TV alike. If they can’t find something with subtitles, Castiel will quietly sit in Eileen’s line of sight and interpret everything the actors say. It’s not just media he interprets, though; sometimes he takes the trouble to interpret whatever the brothers are saying so she can follow the flow of their conversation better. It’s not something they ever mention, but Eileen notices.

The funny thing is, it never feels like they’re giving her special treatment. It just feels like consideration. Like they’d do this for anyone, not just her. They don’t treat her like she’s weird for speaking with her hands. Even though half the bunker is still learning ASL, Eileen feels normal here. She’s starting to be really glad that she came back.

***

If she’s going to be honest, her favorite evenings are the ones she spends with Sam, working quietly on her research in pleasant similarly-minded company. Sometimes, he taps her shoulder and shows her something interesting in a book he’s reading, or will just ask her what she’s working on. It’s never a hassle to talk to him, not when he’s so clearly interested in everything she has to say, signed or not. His earnest smile is infectious. She likes making him laugh, watching him throw his head back and clutch at the table for support. 

When Sam asks her if she wants to drive with him to Kansas City to see an exhibition of old, rare books, of course she says yes. It’s not a long drive, all things considered, and she doesn’t mind spending time with Sam. By some miracle, Dean lets them take the Impala. It’s her favorite car because she can feel the engine’s purring. It’s a noisy drive, as good as music. Sometimes Eileen notices Sam looking at her. But whenever she looks at him, he stares fixedly at the road. She hasn’t played eye-tag like this in a long time, and it makes butterflies fill her stomach as if she’s a teenager again.

They stop at an Indian restaurant for lunch. Sam holds the door for her and pulls out her chair. He explains nervously that, even though Dean’s a great cook, there isn’t a lot of variety there. Eileen reassures him: she doesn’t mind. She’s had Indian before, but not in a long time. It’s a good meal, and they take a long time just sitting together and talking. 

The museum exhibit is fantastic, but Eileen can’t quite stop being distracted by Sam. For such a tall man, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands around her. He’s respectful of her space, staying in her line of sight as often as possible while they study the aged manuscripts. Judging by the way that other museum patrons are looking at the two of them, it’s obvious that there’s a lot going unsaid here. After the fifth time they ‘accidentally’ brush against each other, Eileen decides to take things, quite literally, into her own hands.

On the way out of the museum she catches hold of Sam’s hand. He jumps and stares down at their joined hands, then at her. She shrugs, as if to say, ‘why not?’ and keeps walking toward the car. 

They can’t hold hands on the way home, because the Impala is a stick shift. Still, that night, when they’re in the living room with Dean and Castiel watching some romantic comedy Castiel recently discovered, they hold hands again. His hands are nice to hold, big enough to completely cover hers, warm and gentle. And he doesn’t mind when she lets go to tell Dean what kind of ice cream she wants him to bring from the freezer.

***

It’s an ordinary night in early February, cold and windy. They sit together in the fireplace room, where it’s warm and quiet and still. Castiel curls up on one corner of the couch, a sketchbook on his knees, carefully working out a portrait of Dean, who sits cross-legged on the hearth eating cookies and cleaning his favorite handguns. Sam sprawls beside Castiel, some science-fiction novel in his hands, almost totally absorbed in it. His arm drapes across the gap between the arm of the couch and Eileen’s chair so that he can hold her hand. Except for the arm stuck out to hold Sam’s hand, she’s wrapped in a blanket, just enjoying the warmth and staring into the flames.

After a while, Dean heaves himself to his feet. Eileen looks up, distracted from the fire. “You got my nose wrong,” he says in passing to Castiel, glancing down at the sketchbook.

Eileen looks at Castiel. His irritation is belied by the tolerant roll of his eyes. “I did not, Dean, and you know it,” he says. “That’s how it looks.”

“Whatever.” Affectionately, Dean musses the angel’s dark hair before glancing over at Sam and Eileen. “I think I’m gonna hit the hay.”

“’Night,” Sam says absently, eyes never moving from the text. 

“Good night,” Eileen says with a smile. 

Castiel follows soon after. He rises and sets his sketchbook on the mantelpiece. “Good night,” he says. “Sleep well.” 

“You, too.” Sam still hasn’t looked up from his book. 

Eileen waves at Castiel as he quietly leaves. He gives her shoulder a brief squeeze as he passes.

When he’s out the door, she looks at Sam, who’s barely moved. At this angle she can see his profile, the way his lips move just a little as he breathes the words in his book, how his eyes fix on the pages with the same concentration they always give to her hands. Gently, she squeezes his hand to get his attention. For the first time all night, he tears his eyes away from the book. 

She doesn’t say anything, just holds up her free hand with pinky, index finger, and thumb extended. _I LOVE YOU_.

He sits up fast, dropping the book to his side. _I LOVE YOU_ , he signs back. His hand is shaking. 

Eileen gets up from her chair and sits down beside Sam, moving his book out of the way. She drapes her blanket over his lap, too, snuggling into his side. This isn’t really something she’d ever expected to do, but whatever. If there’s anyone on this planet that she trusts, it’s Sam Winchester. 

When she looks up at him, he’s looking down at her with the most quiet, tender expression she’s maybe ever seen him wear. It seems only natural to push herself up as he leans down, pressing their lips together in a ridiculously shy kiss. One of Sam’s hands slides up to cradle the back of Eileen’s head, gentle and tentative. She watches him through half-lidded eyes, unable to stop watching the way the firelight plays over his skin. Eileen can’t hear him breathing, but she can feel it, and it feels right.

When they break apart, there’s no need for any conversation, with hands or with voices. Sam’s smiling at her, and Eileen’s heart skips a beat. The road is still silent, still endless—but not lonely. Not now, and not ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> A gift fic for one of my friends on her birthday. :)
> 
> Thanks to my INCREDIBLE beta reader, who talked me through the ins and outs of ASL and how to write it, as well as pointing out plot holes big enough to walk a _T. rex_ through. Love you, Pyxyl.


End file.
